New Motion Graphics Templates Push the Creative Boundaries of Premiere Pro

You can hear the excitement in Jonas Hummelstrand’s voice as he moves his cursor around the screen in Adobe Premiere Pro, demonstrating all the powerful capabilities of the new graphics engine and Motion Graphics templates.

There’s a video of a small RC model toy plane flying over an icy lake, with a text overlay that features a quip from the comedian Steven Wright about deja vu and amnesia.

“This is the Motion Graphics template,” Hummelstrand says as the toy plane flies parallel to the lake and then soars high above. “The time the quote is on the screen is about 10 seconds long and it has an in-animation so that it fades into a semi-transparent black background, and then there’s an out-animation where the text sort of drops down and fades away.”

Hummelstrand is demonstrating the template’s text autosizing feature made possible by the Responsive Design features coming in the next release, one of the many features video editors will be able to access directly within Premiere Pro thanks to the powerful new Essential Graphics panel.

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The Motion Graphics templates, which are editable, flexible, and customizable, allow video editors to change the colors, text, and layout of animated graphics, whether it’s a lower-third in a documentary or an animation in a YouTube vlogger’s video. While amazing Motion Graphics templates can be created in After Effects, dynamic templates can also be created directly in Premiere Pro, so users don’t have to know After Effects in order to work with beautiful looking graphics. Hummelstrand, who previously worked in public broadcasting in Sweden, designed the Motion Graphics templates that are now built into Premiere Pro for all users to access.

“These templates are unique because they are native to Premiere Pro, and will render in real time,” he says. “They are very quick. Drop them into the timeline and they play right away. They’re a simple way to get not only style, but also functionality for text and motion graphics dropped directly into your edit.”

On his screen, Hummelstrand continues to demonstrate additional features of Motion Graphic templates. There are pinning capabilities where background images can autofit themselves to the text (and vice versa) and adjustable in-animations and out-animations. “If I drop the template into a different size sequence or different resolution, the template adjusts accordingly, like magic,” he says.

The Premiere Pro .mogrt files (the file extension for Motion Graphics templates) feature a variety of visual styles and effects. In one template Hummelstrand has animated stars in a still image that move independently, creating the feeling of flying through the sky. Then there’s a graphic inspired by what he calls “techno matrix stuff,” which looks like it should be featured in the opening credits of a blockbuster movie about a galaxy far, far away.

“I’m trying to push the boundaries of what you can do in Premiere Pro with these .mogrts,” he says.

Hummelstrand understands that media companies are very text-heavy in their approach to online videos, so easy-to-use and easily customizable Motion Graphics templates can help publishers add more dimension and interest to their content, not to mention streamline and speed up the creation process. The same thing goes for individual creators on YouTube — Motion Graphic templates could improve their video quality, driving more revenue for vloggers or companies with dedicated YouTube channels.

As he designed the Premiere Pro Motion Graphics templates, Hummelstrand says his goal was to make each .mogrt good enough for video editors to use as is, and equally as accessible for customization.

“I wanted to create something that looks good as a base, but if you wanted to create your own iteration, you would have all the building blocks,” he says. “There is nothing hidden here. Everything I have created, you can pick apart — change fonts, types, animation — create your own .mogrt and save that in your library. These templates are like Lego blocks that are not glued together, so if you want to change something, do it.”

Hummelstrand hopes the new Motion Graphics templates offer Premiere Pro users more flexibility than other options on the market and push video editors to be even more creative.

“If I buy a template somewhere where everything is locked in, I probably won’t ever use it because I always want to change something in the visual to make it unique,” he says. “With these Motion Graphics templates, you can really make each graphic your own. I would love for people to use the templates as a starting point for their own exploration.”